Hi! I'm Jane's Brother And I'm Here To Help: Quick Tricks To Get Your Fan, Mower, Squeaky Doors Working Smoothly Again Now That Winter Is Over

Plus: Cheapest easiest way to get rid of mice. Sorry, mice!

Happy New Week, lovely people!

Let's get it started with some helpful advice from my little brother. (Yes, THE Ben Pratt of current New York Magazine fame. And by the way, the only thing that got edited out of my description of this column there was my plea for all this attention to help find him a good girlfriend, so I will stoop to that in my own publication here now: Please help! I am vetting all interested parties at jane@anotherjaneprattthing.com.)

I won't be utilizing any of these tips myself, because I don’t have a lawn and I am not the type to follow instructions that have more than one step. (It’s like with food recipes - I tend to zone out over them, because I know that I will never do that much work for any of those potential outcomes.) But relatively speaking, these instructions have very very few steps, I found the mouse stuff engrossing, and I trust my brother to always come up with solutions to problems that are the most efficient, cheap, easy, and the most environmentally friendly. So if you have a home like he does, or even a fan, these will likely be very useful for you. I hope so, because that's the whole idea with his column. And I love my brother so so much for doing it!

Love you too and have a great day or whatever type of day you want!

Xo Jane

Now that spring has sprung, you might find that some things need attention around the house. Here are a few tips to make that easier for you.

If your mower won't start: First, let me just briefly explain why your mower won’t start. The carburetor on your mower combines air and gas to make an aerosol spray that your mower burns. This means forcing the fuel through tiny holes, just like an aerosol spray can. Normal gas gets old and turns to gummy stuff within a couple of months, and this gummy stuff clogs these holes. Ninety-five percent of the time, this is why mowers don't start in the spring. This can be an expensive fix, and this time of year, your grass will be knee-high before you get it back from the repair shop.

The culprit is ethanol, a corn-based alcohol, which is added to most gas. It does other bad things as well. It eats up rubber hoses and other parts, causing them to leak and break up into bits that can also clog the carburetor. It also sucks water out of the air, which can't be burned and rusts internal components.

The solution is to use only gasoline that doesn't have ethanol in it. Usually called "non-oxygenated fuel," it is available at select gas stations. You can ask your neighbors where to find it, and there are even websites that help you locate it. This gas might cost you a dollar more per gallon, but it's worth it. And if you want to pay an exorbitant amount, you can also buy cans of it at any store that sells mowers. This fuel lasts at least a couple of years. When winter comes, you don't have to do anything to store your mower. It'll start right back up in the spring. BTW, make sure to keep the cap tight on your gas can when you aren’t using it. Even good gas will suck up some moisture, although not nearly as much as an ethanol mixture will.

It’s the one on the right : )

How to get rid of mice: I was in the home improvement store the other day, and overheard a salesperson talking to a customer about mouse control. He suggested ultrasonic mouse repellers. I waited for the employee to go away to tell the customer that these things absolutely do not work. Not even a tiny bit. You can find a video on YouTube where a guy puts one of these gadgets in a box full of seeds in his barn overnight. The mice go into the box to eat without hesitation. Interestingly, in another video, he puts peppermint oil in the box, and it does work! But unless you want your whole house smelling like strong toothpaste, you have to kill the mice. Even though there's a saying about building a better mousetrap, the old-fashioned snap traps do their job well. And at around 50 cents each (and a little peanut butter as bait), you can just throw them out after they have done their job. You don't need an exterminator–just some of these traps and someone who is not grossed out to throw the trap and dead mouse in the garbage outside. You can buy a fancier trap, there are hundreds out there. But whatever you do, don't buy those ultrasonic gadgets. I hate rip-off products like these, and consider it unethical for a company to knowingly cheat you out of your money.

As far as other methods of getting rid of mice are concerned, don’t use mouse poison. The mice can die in a wall and stink up your house for a long time. They can also make it outside, get eaten by something (like a hawk or owl) and kill that animal as well. If you have ethical issues with killing them, you can use a live trap, but consider these points: 1. You have to check them all the time to prevent the mouse from suffering the worse fate of starving to death. 2. You have to bring the live mice far away because otherwise they will follow their scent and come back. 3. If you use a kill trap, you can feed the dead ones to the wildlife and complete the circle of life! 4. Many species of mice are invasive, so it is discouraged to catch and release them. 5. You can end up with a Gene Hackman situation….

I paid a little more to get this one with the plastic bait area with more room for the mouse to step on, but the OG one works!

Find the right mower, air conditioner, appliance, and many other spring things: Call your local repair person. They are the ones who know which of these items are reliable and which aren't. They are usually very generous with their advice, and I have learned so much from them over the years. Another option is to add the word "discussion" or "forum" to your Google search. You'd be surprised how many fanatics get together on the internet to discuss everything from mowers to vacuum cleaners. Many of these people own repair businesses as well.

What to do when your electric fan stops working: The part that spins on your fan is called the motor shaft. On newer fans, this shaft comes with a thin layer of oil to make it spin easily. Eventually, this oil goes away, and it takes more energy to spin it. When there is no lubrication left, and the blades turn very slowly or not at all, the motor burns up–literally, with smoke! Vintage fans have oil holes. Once in a while, you put a couple of drops in the hole, and the fan runs like new. Very old fans are even better than that. Inside, there is a wick that holds a lot of oil. This wick rubs up against the shaft and deposits the oil gradually. When this oil finally runs out, you put several drops in to fill it up again. After a hundred years or so, this wick might wear out, but even then, they are replaceable

Antique fan oil wick and vintage fan oil hole.

As far as I'm concerned, all things that have an electric motor (your vacuum, your washer and dryer, your mixer) should have oil holes–but almost none of them do. A newer fan doesn't have them either. But if you are willing to go through some effort, there is a solution. Just today, I took the front grill off of mine, pulled the blades off (it's just a friction fit), and dripped oil on the shaft. I laid the fan on its back and tried to get the oil to drip down and lubricate the entire shaft. I also spun the shaft by hand to help it get in there. It took a little time, but the fan runs perfectly and will run almost as long as it did up until this point. Yours will too (unless you waited too long and the motor started to burn up).

If you look carefully, you’ll see where I dripped the oil.

Btw, as I mentioned in an earlier article, I put a HEPA furnace filter on the back of mine to filter the air. You can also use this system if you put the fan in the window in the summer; it will filter out dust, pollen and even some smoke, before it gets into your home.

One final tip: While you have that oil handy, go ahead and oil your door hinges! It keeps them from squeaking, wearing out, and allows them to move more easily. I often do this for people when I’m a guest at their house, because it's so easy and makes such a big difference. But I'm a weirdo.

Bye for now. And just a reminder: I love questions and ideas for future columns!